There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)

Brassy, and colourful musical, directed by Walter Lang and completely lacking in depth. 

The main point of interest is Marilyn Monroe, who is always engaging, and it’s telling how much the film has retrospectively been sold on her involvement. The back of the DVD box, for instance, describes it as a Monroe film, when she’s not the star of it at all. 

The main focus is on the singing family, the Donahues, played by Ethel Merman, Donald O’Connor, Dan Dailey, Johnnie Ray and Mitzi Gaynor. They’re loud and bold, in an unsubtle and unappealing way, and they lack charisma. Indeed, they struggle to hold your attention at all.

Likewise, the songs by Irving Berlin aren’t especially memorable, with the exception of the famous title song (which you have to wait right until the end to hear). 

It’s not a terrible film by any means, and it probably achieves what it sets out to, but from the vantage point of 2023 there’s very little in it that stands up.

Some Like It Hot (1959)

An absolutely wonderful comedy classic. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are the musicians who have to impersonate women to escape Prohibition-era gangsters. Marilyn Monroe is the singer and ukulele player in the all-girl band they join in order to flee Chicago.

It’s very, very funny and the slapstick is perfectly timed. Curtis and Lemmon make it work because they through themselves so completely into pretending to be women. The most amusing moment is probably the sequence on the train after lights-out when an absurd number of girls cram themselves into Jerry's tiny bunk for a secret party.

Monroe is perfect as Sugar Kane. There are stories of her being unable to remember her lines on set, but her performance is so natural and charming that it’s hard to believe.